…what? Every segregated airport I’ve ever flown through, in more than a few countries, leaves the plane at the same gate for arrival/departure, and passengers are segregated architecturally immediately upon leaving the jetbridge. Needing a tow is not the reason US airports aren’t segregated, it’s just policy.

You make it sound as if it was obvious. There are airports where even domestic flights are segregated, and if the baggage is already rechecked (so they don’t have to go to baggage claim) they still go with everyone else until a point where they are separated into connecting pax and final dest. pax. At this point those who have a connection go to the boarding lounge again. I really thought this was an unnecessary explanation, but it seems that some people have never seen it.

To be fair multiple floors/levels and complex people flows are pretty standard in many other 3D simulation games in the gaming industry. Even some older games like iconic rollercoaster tycoon (1999) have this.

But sure it’s not something you normally see in 2D topdown indie simulation games, and I fully understand it could be tricky to both include and visualize.

I also agree your approach is correct to start out smaller scale and work your way up to support mechanics of larger international airports ( like multi floor ) later on, as opposed to SimAirport which went for 747s in tiny airports/runways right away with pretty horrible results.

In my experience arrival and departure segregation seems to occur mainly with regards to international passengers. It seems logical that you wouldn’t want international arrivals to mingle with international departures. An immediate scenario that comes to mind would be drug trafficking, if someone is trying to Traffic from country A to B but B has A listed as a risk country, you could travel to country C and offload your contraband to someone in the international arrivals/departures area who is heading to B, Country A didn’t check you on departure as they don’t care if your leaving the country with drugs and since you could mingle in the international arrivals dream there were no checks on arrival into country C, creating something of a backdoor (at least in relation to country of origin profiles) into Country B.

I was reading through this discussion and I noticed that nobody gave the clear answer why some airports segregate departing and arriving passengers…

I have worked in Zurich airport as a part time ground staff, and the reason why airport segregates passengers is the security.

In the US, domestic arrival passengers share the same area with departing passengers. In fact, domestic flight passengers in most countries are not segregated. Also, in the Schengen area, passengers arriving from airports located in Schengen area also share the same area with departing passengers.

This is allowed because the security level throughout the US or the Schengen area is assumed to be the same. At least in the same country, the airport security regulations are the same. After going through the security, there is no way for passengers to have an access to other things outside the secured zone until they claim their baggage at their point of destination. Also, domestic passengers don’t have to go through passport control and customs. Therefore, it is okay to let departing and arriving passengers to mingle around in the same area.

When it comes to international flights, things get different. Even though it seems like every country in the world have the same airport security regulations, they don’t. Security check in the United States is much more strict compared to other countries. Therefore, airports assume that international arriving passengers are unsecured. If you are changing your flight from international to international, or international or domestic, in many airports you need to go through the security at the airport again since the government law of most countries forces passengers arriving outside of their country to go through security with their own security standards.

Because international arrival passengers are assumed to be unsecured, most countries don’t allow them to mingle with departing passengers. Even in Copenhagen airport, which the developer mentioned, if you are arriving there from a non-Schengen area, you will be segregated from departing passengers.

Arriving in LAX Terminal 2 (Delta - combination of more local international and domestic), the facility doesn’t really appear in place to separate arriving and departing passengers.

Singapore Changi is an example of an airport I can think of that completely doesn’t separate its passengers at all. All the arriving passengers just walk through the main concourse then take an escalator down to passport control etc. Though I guess this works and makes sense since all flights arriving into Singapore are international, so every arriving passenger will have to clear immigration.

The US doesn’t have segregation for arriving/departing domestic flights or departing international flights, only arriving international flights. Unlike most European airports there’s no exit control of any kind, domestic or international.

At Chicago all international flights* go to the international terminal 5 where you have to clear immigration and transfer over to one of the other domestic terminals if you have a connecting flight. The planes of the US carriers are towed over to the domestic terminals for their next international departure.

*There are a few international airports that have US preclearance locations where you clear US immigration before you take off, this means you get off in the domestic terminal.